


Run Into You

by kenzz_95



Series: Trektober 2020 [12]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU where I make them actually TALK to each other like goddamn adults, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends reunited, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzz_95/pseuds/kenzz_95
Summary: Leonard hasn't seen his college best friend since his wedding 7 years prior and they've only talked occasionally since, so Leonard doesn't know what to think when he runs into Jim leaving his new job in San Francisco post-divorce. He quickly realizes that he craves the friendship they once had, and the more he hadn't realized he'd wanted at the time, but Jim's a bit hesitant. Communication was always a problem for them before, but this time, they're talking about it. Leonard is going to make sure of that.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Trektober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948633
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71
Collections: Trektober 2020





	Run Into You

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Day 12: Wildcard. (The challenge allows for 3 wildcards and I couldn't figure out how to make any of today's prompts work for me so instead we have this).
> 
> I tried to stick to something a bit trope-y keeping in the spirit of Trektober.
> 
> This is my typical fair, meaning it's a little fluffy and they love each other. Enjoy!

In terms of regrets in his life, Jim Kirk was near the top of Leonard McCoy’s list, which was probably stupid because he’d done a lot of things in the meantime worth regretting. But Jim...he constantly regretted the way things had ended with Jim. The two men, more of boys really when they met, had been randomly assigned as roommates their freshman year of college and had quickly formed a close friendship, one that had teetered just on the edge of something more during the four years when they lived and studied together. But Leonard was dead set on med school and Jim was going to get his masters degree in education and teach high school, and friends didn’t follow each other across the country for graduate school. It just wasn’t done. So even though Leonard had wanted, more than anything else, for them to coordinate their post-graduate plans, his 22 year old self had never been able to find the balls to even begin to ask a question like that. Neither of them had really been open to discussing any kind of feelings back then. So they had said a goodbye that made Leonard feel like he got shot, went their separate ways, and swore to keep in touch. 

But it was never that easy. They were both really busy, and what began as daily texts or calls unraveled into a quick text every few months, and then less. Jim had been Leonard’s best man at his wedding, he’d flown across the country for it, but he’d hardly had a lot of time to catch up at his wedding, and he hadn’t seen the other man since. That had been seven years ago, and the last he’d heard from Jim had been a holiday card featuring his former best friend sitting under a Christmas tree in the single most ridiculous pair of pajamas Leonard had ever seen and holding two puppies in his lap. It had made his heart do something funny, and he’d hung it on the fridge of the extended stay hotel he’d been staying in while his divorce was being finalized.

He wanted to reach out again, but had no idea how. What was he even supposed to say? “Hey, so 10 years ago we had what in hindsight was a wildly homoerotic friendship but I was still trying to convince myself I was straight back then and then you were the best man at my wedding and were in a shitty mood the entire time and now my marriage fell apart and I lost custody of my daughter and I think I was a little bit in love with you back in college so do you think we can start talking again?” No, there was no way to start that conversation. Jim had probably moved on, he probably didn’t even think much about his old college roommate except when he was clinically addressing the holiday card to “Dr. Leonard McCoy.” So Leonard just sat in the regret, like he had been for years, and wished he’d had the balls to ask Jim to come with him to medical school, or even just make a better effort to keep in touch back in the beginning when it had been easier. There was probably no point of thinking about things he couldn’t change, or wouldn’t change, but, well, that certainly hadn’t stopped him before.

If he was being honest with himself, Leonard had no idea why he moved to San Francisco. Maybe it was just an attempt to get as far away from his ex-wife as possible. Logically, it would’ve made more sense to stay in Atlanta. Jocelyn had ripped him apart in the custody hearing, because marrying a lawyer finally came back to bite him in the ass, but if he had stayed local maybe he still could’ve seen Joanna sometimes. But he was pissed and hurt and Atlanta just reminded him of everything he’d lost so he moved to, well, not the furthest place he could think of, but definitely one of the furthest while staying in the country. San Francisco was...fine. He wasn’t the biggest fan of the weather, but he liked his new job in the emergency department at a local hospital there, in an absolutely shitty part of town because he always sought out the places where he felt like a good doctor could make a world of difference. For him that was never just treating rich kids getting their stomach pumped after they drank their parents liquor cabinet. He had some good coworkers, fellow healthcare workers who were in this more to make a difference than to make a dollar, and he was almost starting to think of some of them as friends. A few months into foggy San Francisco summers, he was starting to feel marginally more settled. What he wasn’t expecting though, not in a million years, was to run into Jim Kirk at the hospital. Quite literally, in fact.

It was a late summer Saturday morning, foggy and, in Leonard’s opinion, far too cool for August when he ran into the ghost from his past. He’d just gotten off an overnight shift, which he hated, and was itching for a rant about guns and drugs and all the other things he’d seen that night that had thoroughly pissed him off, so he didn’t have a lot of patience when he ran into some man at the entrance to the hospital.

“Hey,” he snapped when he inadvertently shoulder checked another man, “Watch where you’re walking. That door says exit.”

“Sorry. Hey could you tell me where... _ Bones _ ?”

He hadn’t heard that nickname in years. He froze, looked up, and found himself face to face with unforgettable blue eyes and thick brows and a wide smile and dammit even after years of wishing they could reconnect he found himself speechless when actually face to face with his former best friend. Luckily, Jim could speak enough for the both of them, he always could.

“Shit, man, I can’t believe it, what the hell are you doing here?”

Leonard forced himself to snap out of it. He swallowed hard because this was awkward and why was it awkward, being with Jim had never been awkward, then finally replied.

“I work here, what the hell are  _ you _ doing here?”

“You work here? I  _ live  _ here.”

Leonard arched a brow, “You live  _ here _ ? In the hospital?”

Jim snorted, “Obviously not, Bones. I live here, in San Francisco. For the past three years. Did you not know that?”

He had not known that, and Jim looked a little hurt behind his eyes which really he had no right to since they had barely spoken in that time. He supposed he could’ve paid more attention to the return address on the yearly holiday cards he got from the other man, but he had never given it much attention. 

Leonard apparently didn’t answer quickly enough for Jim, because Jim continued after pausing for a beat,

“Whatever. How the hell long have you been in town?”

“About 6 months. Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, why?”

“Because you’re walking into an emergency department,” Leonard pointed out. Back in college, Jim had been horribly accident-prone. He’d lost track of how many times he’d had to drag his friend to the campus clinic, or even to the hospital. Granted, he was only accident prone because he had a habit of doing stupid and reckless shit, but still. He looked fine now, though, and actually his eyes lit up,

“Oh! Yeah, one of my kids fell backwards in his chair yesterday and cracked his skull on the floor. They kept him overnight for observation, I’m bringing him donuts.”

Leonard felt his eyes go wide at the mention of kids before remembering that there had never even been a significant other in any of Jim’s holiday cards, let alone a  _ child _ , and his old friend  _ was  _ a teacher, so he must be talking about a student. Jim picked up on Leonard’s shocked expression, though, because he laughed a little and shook his head,

“I mean one of my students. He’s 16, so I guess he’s not really a kid, and he’s certainly not  _ mine _ . I just teach him pre-calc, and only for the past few weeks. He’s trying to get a scholarship and go off to college, a lot of kids around here can’t afford it, and he’s freaking out about having to miss class, apparently.”

Leonard felt a surge of something strangely akin to pride at hearing how much Jim cared about his students, and of course Jim was trying to help disadvantaged kids. That had always been his dream, he had wanted to make a difference in the lives of teens who were struggling because nobody had for him. Back in college, Jim would always talk excitedly about how the two of them were going to save the world together. They had both accomplished the thing they’d dreamed of in undergrad, but somehow the “together” bit had fallen by the wayside. Thinking about it made him a little sad. He cleared his throat, trying to shake it off. He remembered the kid Jim was talking about, not because he treated him as he wasn’t on shift when the kid came in, but because he’d helped transfer him out of the ED.

“The kid’s going to be fine, last I saw him. But head injuries are serious. He shouldn’t be leaning back on chairs like that.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Jim snapped, the sudden shift in his mood throwing Leonard off a bit, “I  _ told _ him that, but I wasn’t exactly going to repeat it when he was lying barely conscious on the floor of my classroom. You have no idea how long it takes ambulances to get here in this neighborhood.”

“Oh I don’t, don’t I?” Leonard bit back, thinking of all the patients he’d already seen here who would’ve had better outcomes if they weren’t in such an underserved area without enough EMTs to go around. That seemed to get to Jim, though, because he unclenched his jaw and leaned back into the wall they were standing next to,

“Shit, I’m sorry, of course you do. I didn’t get much sleep last night. And it’s dawning on me that you probably didn’t get  _ any _ sleep last night. So, uh, I should probably go, but do you want a donut?”

“Do I want one of the donuts you bought for your injured student? No.”

“Suit yourself,” Jim shrugged, “Hey, if you’re living around here now we should do something sometime. I’ll, ya know, text you or something.”

Dammit, Leonard hated this. He hated how awkward it felt between them, because the best part of his friendship with Jim was that it never had been the slightest bit awkward. They’d always just  _ clicked _ , but now it seemed like neither of them knew how to talk to each other after so long out of contact. He didn’t say anything about that, though, and instead simply nodded,

“Yeah, sure. It was, uh, nice to see you again, Jim. I’ll see you around?”

“See you around,” Jim confirmed, spinning on the heel of a pair of bright red Converse and heading towards a stairwell. Leonard, meanwhile, sighed deeply before finally leaving the hospital himself. That hadn’t been what he’d been expecting.

Leonard was not actually expecting to see Jim around. He knew this song and dance by now. Saying you should do something and then not actually doing anything seemed to be a hallmark of adult friendships. The problem was, though, that Leonard had Jim Kirk on the brain, much more so than usual. In fact, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jim in the week following their run-in in the hospital lobby. Jim was passionate and funny and genuinely cared about other people just like he’d always been and always had and for the life of him Leonard couldn’t remember why he let the other man slip out of his life. The fact that there hadn’t even been any kind of argument, that it was all just on the fact that they faded from each other because they were both stupid busy in school and living on opposite ends of the country and Leonard had been busy building then losing his family...somehow it was worse than if there had been an inciting incident to them not talking much anymore. Because Jim had made him happy and regardless of whatever else they’d been or may have become, Jim was a good friend and Leonard was kicking himself because he could’ve had that the whole time.

About a week after running into Jim at the hospital, after he’d spent the whole week having added Jim to the two things he usually thought about constantly - those being work and Joanna, Leonard decided to act like the 32 year old man he was instead of the child he’d been behaving like in respect to this situation for years, and he texted Jim, inquiring about the seriousness of his suggestion that they do something. Jim had replied immediately, saying that he did indeed want to hang out, and then they’d actually  _ made plans _ despite their weird and occasionally conflicting work schedules, and really that usually was half the battle when it came to getting together with people. Jim wanted to show Leonard some local hiking trails because trust Jim Kirk to not be interested in a simple “we’ve barely seen each other in 10 years” cup of coffee. Leonard had agreed because, well, he also enjoyed being active, and any awkward silences could’ve been passed off as needing to catch their breath.

What Leonard hadn’t been expecting was how  _ easy _ it was. Their previous conversation at the hospital had felt awkward and stilted, but as they set out walking Jim’s favorite trail just outside the city, the conversation flowed fast and easy. Maybe it had been the shock of seeing each other again without any warning that had put an awkward veil over everything the last time, but walking side by side with Jim chatting casually about work, sports, movies, and other easy topics felt like the most simple, natural thing in the word. This was why they’d been such good friends to begin with. Jim and Leonard fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, even after all these years. It was nice, the feeling of just jumping right back into it, not quite where they left off, but more like it had been a year since they’d been inseparably close and not a decade.

“So,” Jim said casually, hopping on a random rock right off the trail, then hopping off with a smile, all boundless energy even in his early 30s. “Where do you live, exactly? I know Joanna is still too young for school, and I might not know anyone at the fancy schools the daughter of a doctor and a lawyer would attend anyways, but I’m just curious what school she’ll be going to in, what, a year or two?”

Oh. There it was. Jim still thought he was married. Of course he did, why wouldn’t he? The topic hurt, still as red and raw as it had been when he first heard the custody decision, but he figured he might as well rip the bandage off.

“Joanna will be attending elementary school back in Georgia,” he said simply.

“Oh, are you just here on a temp basis then?” Jim asked, but then he looked at Leonard’s face and must’ve noticed his pinched expression because that thousand megawatt smile was quickly replaced by a look of sympathy and a hand on his shoulder. “Shit, Bones, really? Damn. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Leonard lied, trying to brush this off before it turned into a conversation he still didn’t know how to have.

“No, it’s not,” Jim countered, which Leonard thought was odd. Back in college, Jim would’ve slapped a giant label on this whole topic, “here lies emotions and the potential for vulnerability” and then ran away from it to never inquire about it again. That had been the biggest problem in their friendship. They had never  _ talked _ enough, not about things that mattered, not while they were both sober. Maybe it was time that changed. 

“No, it’s not,” he finally agreed, “If it was just Jocelyn...it’d been falling apart for a while. But it’s more complicated, with Jo. You don’t just fall out of love with you daughter. 

“Jocelyn got full custody then?”

“Yeah. Never marry a lawyer, Jim.”

Jim laughed, mostly without humor, “I’ll keep that in mind. What happened? You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to, I know this is the first time we’ve really talked in a while…”

Leonard forced himself to answer. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as he worried it would be, “What makes you assume something happened? Divorce ain’t uncommon, maybe we just drifted apart.”

“She wouldn’t have taken Joanna from you if it was just an amicable split.”

“A couple years back, my father died,” Leonard left it at that, not willing to get into the exact details of what happened.

“My God, Bones…”

“Yeah, well I sort of threw myself into work after that, I was just finishing up my residency, and work was a distraction. I wasn’t there for my family like I should’ve been. Then about a year ago I found out she’d been warming our bed with my own goddamn coworker when I pulled late shifts at the hospital. Our divorce was finalized back in January, but it’s been done for a lot longer than that, when I think about it.”

Jim shook his head, “Let me get this straight? She cheated on you and she still got full custody of your daughter? That’s fucked up.”

“Never marry a lawyer, Jim,” he reiterated, “They convinced the court I worked too much to be a good father, even if it was just every other weekend. I’d’ve made it work, but they didn’t care.”

“Damn. I don’t really know what to say,” Jim admitted, “The problems my students turn to me with are usually a bit more straightforward. Nobody’s getting divorced in high school.”

Ah, so that’s what was behind Jim’s sudden - well, maybe not sudden, it had been years after all - willingness to tread the waters of vulnerability and listen during difficult conversations. Jim was a great mentor to those kids he taught, Leonard would put money on it.

“You don’t have to say anything. It can’t be fixed. It’s...nice to have someone to talk to about it, though,” he realized. He hadn’t talked about this much since it happened, not ever knowing who to turn to. For some reason he was finding a strange amount of solace in his college best friend, despite the time between them. But that was always how it was with Jim, wasn’t it? Not always easy, necessarily, but always  _ natural _ . Maybe there was a part of that bond that time couldn’t erode.

“Anytime, Bones,” Jim nodded, “I never liked her anyways, if that makes you feel any better.”

Leonard laughed a little, unsure how that could possibly make him feel any better or worse. But it was true, and he knew it. Jim and Jocelyn had never gotten along. In fact, when he thought about it, that probably hadn’t made staying in touch with Jim easier. It wasn’t like either of them ever asked Leonard to choose between them or anything, but he felt like he couldn’t bring up one with the other because Jim would get quiet and Jocelyn would get passive aggressive and it was just a big mess. Neither of them were ever one to hold back their opinions, they had both made their feelings on the other immensely clear even though the reasons behind it didn’t make much sense for either of them. They just rubbed each other the wrong way, he supposed. 

“Wow,” Leonard drawled, “Really? I never picked up on that.”

Jim just laughed brightly. Leonard had forgotten how good that sound made him feel.

Somehow hiking became something of Jim and Leonard’s  _ thing _ . They were both busy, but neither of them worked Sundays and most every Sunday morning became time dedicated to Jim showing Leonard all his favorite trails in the area. Sometimes he brought his dogs, the two puppies from his last Christmas card now full grown but still full of puppy energy. Jim had an Australian shepherd and a yellow lab named Fox and Bird respectively. Jim had always thought animals named after other animals were funny, so that was one thing that hadn’t changed since college. The dogs matched Jim’s outgoing and social energy turn for turn, and would run ahead of the men on the trail investigating smells and occasionally running back to weave between their legs as they walked.

They didn’t usually discuss anything of significant consequence as they walked, but it was oh so nice. The simple fact was that Leonard was happy when he was with Jim. He always had been, and it seemed that hadn’t changed. Ten years felt more like 10 months the way they fell back into the friendship they had once shared. Well, not quite the same, but that was to be expected. They weren’t nearly as physical with each other, but they already were communicating much better, the last bit owing mostly to the fact that they had become decently well adjusted adults who could say things to each other like “I’m glad we’re hanging out again” or “I had a really difficult day at work today and need to talk it out” and not have it be a big deal.

The problem for Leonard, other than the fact that falling back into friendship with Jim was making him kick himself constantly for ever letting this go, was that with the return of Jim to his life a whole bunch of other long buried feelings were being drawn up to the surface. The whole thing where Leonard had realized, only once he was already married and not talking to Jim more than a few times a year, that he’d been a little bit in love with Jim back in college...well, those feelings were apparently a lot easier to resuscitate than he would’ve thought. He found himself thinking about the shape of Jim’s lips, the blue of his eyes, the curve of the muscles in his arms when he wore some absurd tank top to hike one hot September day, and the absolutely and absurdly charming picture Jim Kirk painted in sunglasses and an easy small pulling into the particular parking lot he was meeting Leonard at on a given Sunday. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about a student he was proud of, the way he hung on every word Leonard said with nothing short of his full attention, his propensity to remember little details of their past conversations, and the full-throttle passionate way he seemed to approach every little thing he did. Jim Kirk was captivating, and in only a matter of weeks he’d planted himself right back into Leonard’s heart, right where he’d been before, maybe where he’d always been.

Jim, though, was holding him at arms’ length. Or, well, maybe not. It was hard for Leonard to tell. Because they had gotten better at talking, but it felt like Jim had put up a few walls, like there was something between them that never had been there when they’d been in college. They never saw each other in private, either, exclusively meeting up for hikes and occasionally lunch after, and Leonard had never even been in Jim’s car much less his apartment. But also, well, his friendship with Jim had been a whole hell of a lot more like a romantic relationship than any other friendship he’d ever been in, so maybe they were just normal fucking friends this time. Leonard tried to tell himself that he was fine with that. With Jim, he was happier than he’d been in a while, at least since when his dad died, despite the heartache he still carried from losing custody of Joanna. This was fine, Jim had obviously moved on from what they’d almost had in college, which Leonard couldn’t blame him for. After all, he himself had moved on from it quickly and hadn’t given those feelings much thought until a couple months ago when he’d run into Jim for the first time in years. So they stuck to their weekly hikes, and they texted every few days, and overall had a normal, healthy, not weirdly codependent adult friendship. And Leonard was okay with that. He really, really was.

One day in early November, on his way to the hospital, Leonard stopped at Jim’s favorite donut shop on a whim and dropped several boxes of donuts off at the school office for Jim’s first period class. He didn’t know  _ why _ he did it, he just wanted to, he knew that a few boxes of donuts were nothing to him but would mean everything to those kids and Jim would be so happy. He wanted Jim to be happy. It was simple, really. He didn’t really expect anything from it, maybe a thank you text from Jim later that day, but when he didn’t get anything he wasn’t disappointed or anything. He hadn’t done it for himself, after all. 

But then, a few days later on their weekly Sunday hike, Jim was acting closed off and snippy and suddenly Leonard was reminded of the moods the other man would sometimes get back in college, or when he’d first began seriously dating Jocelyn. But they were  _ talking _ now, at least in theory, so after a tense first half hour of their hike in which Jim talked more to his dogs than to Leonard, he sighed,

“Okay, Jim, what’s your deal?”

“I don’t have a ‘deal’,” Jim snapped, and wow, this really was shades of college. But now Leonard wasn’t going to back down.

“I don’t think so, try again.”

“Fine,” Jim sighed, shook his head, and raked long fingers through dirty blond hair, “Fine. You want the truth? I can’t fucking do this again, Bones, okay? We can’t do this.”

“Do what, Jim?” Leonard asked. His stomach turned, mind immediately jumping to the worst case scenario. Jim couldn’t possibly be talking about their newly rejuvenated friendship, could he? Things had been good between them, at least they had in Leonard’s book. He’d assumed the feeling was mutual.

“This! We can’t...I mean, you…” Jim was all frantic energy, kicking rocks along the trail as he walked quickly. Fox circled back behind Leonard, urging him to keep up with the new pace Jim was setting. He did, but not without a fair amount of bemusement that he was now apparently taking direction from an Aussie puppy. “Look,” Jim finally continued after a long pause to gather his thoughts, “You dropped off donuts for my class on Wednesday!”

Leonard was admittedly shocked. This was all about some damn donuts? Christ.

“Is that against the rules or something? I’m sorry if I caused any problems for you or your students.”

“The damn donuts are not the issue here, Bones.”

“You’re the one who brought them up.”

“You’re being willfully ignorant,” Jim accused, voice this weird blend of hurt, scared, and defensive. Leonard would give anything to take that away but, well, he  _ wasn’t _ being willfully ignorant, and he had no idea how to fix this.

“I am not. You’re being cryptic and intentionally evasive,” Leonard countered. “Just out with it, will you?”

“Okay, fine. Shit. I was just telling one of my students on Friday about the importance of communication and boundary setting, and  _ God _ I’m such a damn hypocrite. So here’s the ‘deal’. You and I can’t be what we were, back in college. We can’t have that again, I can’t take it. I was young and dumb and there was a part of me that thought that the intensely close friendship I had a with a goddamn straight guy could turn into something more and you know what that story’s been written a million times and it always has the same ending and we weren’t exactly an exception to that. And ya know what I’ll own that, that’s on me. I was stupid and jealous and hurt and I had no right to be, I was a shitty friend and I should’ve been happy for you when you found Jocelyn, or at least I should’ve pretended better. But I’m not 20 anymore, I know better than to fall back into the same type of friendship that is  _ still _ the realest relationship I’ve ever been in. I need to take a step back from that, because if I let myself get that invested again it’s going to  _ kill me _ when you find someone else again. And you need to respect that.”

Leonard was speechless, which wasn’t something that happened easily or often. He’d never have guessed, not in a million years, that this was the direction this conversation would take. He was gaping like a fish, stunned both from the suddenness of this and from the “duh, why didn’t I see this coming earlier?” of it all. 

“So that’s it,” Jim finally spoke again when Leonard still hadn’t said anything, “If it weirds you out to know I was in love with you back in college then tough. That’s just the way it was, and this is just the way it needs to be.”

Leonard had to say something, but his brain couldn’t process this fast enough, there were so many implications of it all that he was still working to wrap his head around. The only thing his brain could supply his mouth with was,

“I’m not straight.” It was an important correction, but not the most important thing to say in the moment. Probably the easiest, though. “Realized I liked guys, too, shortly after I proposed to Jocelyn. So.”

“Good for you,” Jim replied, a strange tightness in his voice Leonard didn’t know if he’d heard before. He realized he wasn’t about to get a better moment than this and, well, who would he be to expect Jim to get honest and vulnerable but not be willing to do the same in return?

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize earlier.”

“I don’t think not realizing you were bi earlier is something you can really apologize for, Bones. It’s not like you have control over it.”   


“I don’t mean that. Or, well, not just that. I had this realization that you and I could’ve been somethin’ and I’d wanted that, back in college, just didn’t realize it at the time. Didn’t figure that out ‘till I was already married to Jocelyn, figured it didn’t really matter. But,” he paused, making sure he had Jim’s full attention before he finished, “maybe it could.”

Jim stepped in front of him and came to a sudden complete stop, quickly enough that Leonard nearly ran into him. Jim’s eyes were wide, the bright blue searching his own hazel like he was waiting for some sort of punch line. 

“Are you being serious right now?” Jim finally asked.

“You think I’d make a joke about something like that, Jim?” 

“Shit,” Jim breathed, “Shit. Okay, so…”

“Okay, so I miss what we used to have more than anything. I have for a while. And, if you’re amenable, I don’t want to take a step back from that. I want to take a step forward.”

Leonard held Jim’s gaze as he spoke. If he was being honest, this wasn’t easy for him either, in fact all his instincts were screaming at him to stop being so goddamn vulnerable because he’d never been the most comfortable with it and, well, the last time he’d done it the outcome had been the ultimate betrayal of his trust. But this was Jim, and nothing worth doing was ever done easily, and he knew Jim was worth doing, in every way he could think of.

“Bones, I…” Jim shook his head, “You have to understand I gave up hoping for this  _ years _ ago.”

“So you don’t want…”

“I do. I think I do. But this is all so out of the goddamn blue for me, I know I typically jump right into the deep end with everything, and don’t get me wrong that’s my instinct here too, but if I’m being honest with myself I might need a bit of time before I can commit to something like that, ya know, emotionally.”

“I’m not asking you to commit to anything, Jim.”

“So, what are you asking me?”

“Well, technically I wasn’t asking you  _ anything _ , but now that you mention it, did I ever tell you that Jocelyn was a terrible cook?”

“Uh, no,” Jim looked thrown by the sudden change in subject, knitting thick brows together.

“She burnt everything she touched. So I always cooked in our house. It was a bit relaxing, really. So…” he took a deep breath, steadying himself emotionally before fully committing to this, “let me make you dinner? I haven’t had any guests to my apartment yet. Come over and I’ll make us something and we can go from there.”

Jim just blinked at him a couple times, saying nothing, then finally he closed the space between them and suddenly pressed his lips to Leonard’s. Leonard was stunned for a moment because this wasn’t how he imagined this conversation ending but he’d been wondering how Jim’s lips would taste for a while so he leaned into Jim and kissed him back. It was worth every feeling of awkwardness and vulnerability that he’d experienced in this process, a million times over. 

Finally, when one of Jim’s dogs started barking, they pulled away. Leonard wished they didn’t have to.

“Whatever happened to takin’ it slow?” he asked, hoping Jim caught the smile in his eyes and knew this wasn’t him complaining about what had just happened. As if he could.

Jim obviously did, because he smiled that bright smile that made Leonard a little weak in the knees and shrugged,

“Sorry, I’ve been wanting to do that for more than a decade, I couldn’t help myself.”

“I ain’t complaining, Jim,” Leonard pointed out.

“I know,” Jim said brightly, “So...dinner?”

Leonard was grinning like an idiot. He didn’t even bother trying to hide it. “I’m off next Friday night.”

“Great, I’ll bring the booze,” Jim offered and slung an arm around Leonard’s shoulders and nudged him forward as they started to walk again. “And, Bones? I’m glad I ran into you again.”

“So am I, Jim,” Leonard agreed, “So am I.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...I kinda really want to write their first date, actually. Stay tuned post Trektober on that one.
> 
> Fun fact, my dad used to bring my mom's class donuts back when they were dating. It went better for him.
> 
> Also it'll kill me if nobody notices this so "the damn donuts are not the issue here" is a play off "the Iranian yogurt is not the issue here" which is like my favorite phrase on the internet.


End file.
